Game On

How Game of Thrones Poured Cold Water on Two Highly Anticipated Moments

This post contains spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 6, Episode 3, “Oathbreaker.” If you haven’t watched yet or don’t want to be spoiled, now is the time to leave. Spoilers below for this episode only.

This week’s episode of the HBO series was primed to deliver two moments Game of Thrones fans have been eagerly anticipating for a long time. (In one case, they’ve been waiting 20 years.) But while the writers decided to put a twist on both those moments, those twists will likely payoff big time in the episodes to come.

The first subverted moment is the long-awaited death of Olly, the best archer in his village. Like Ros (Esme Bianco), the happy, accounting-savvy prostitute before him, this completely show-invented character was unpopular with book purists from the start. (Ros was more popular with, ahem, a certain segment of the viewing audience.) Olly, however, had no such luck. Once he killed off Ygritte in Season 4, even the non-book readers turned against him. (In the books it was a random arrow—and, Jon was relieved to discover, not his own—that takes down Ygritte.) That triumphant nod after Ygritte’s death didn’t help the kid’s popularity one bit.

. . .the writers cemented the kid’s unpopularity in Season 5 by having him play key role in the assassination of Jon Snow. Poor Brenock O’Connor—the 16 year-old actor who played Olly—started receiving death threats. So the kid had to go, not just because he was deeply unpopular but because, like Ros, he wasn’t in the books. Show-invented characters usually (usually) don’t last too long in book adaptations because of the narrative ripples their mere presence creates.

But the comparison to Ros is especially apt because no matter how much viewers may have disliked either her or Olly, their deaths weren’t exactly meant to inspire cheers. (Unlike, say, the death of the deeply disliked Joffrey Baratheon.) In Ros’s case, the sheer brutality and sexualized nature of her death sparked shock and dismay over. Not her absence on the show, mind you, but the way she went out. As for Olly, did his death have his most devoted haters cheering wildly? Well, maybe.

But once the dust clears, fans will have to confront the fact that the old Jon Snow never would have let Olly swing. No matter how egregious his betrayal. Jon is clearly conflicted, but he makes a hard choice the old Jon probably wouldn’t have. Maybe he’s just growing closer to Ned Stark. Passing the sentence and swinging the sword.

We knew Jon would come back different and while his transformation may not be as extreme as some had predicted, this is definitely a darker Lord Commander. Breaking his oath to the Night’s Watch doesn’t seem like a wrong step to take here, but those desperately wishing for Jon Snow’s return should be wary about what Jon and his sassy new haircut might do next.

The other plot in “Oathbreaker” that may have inspired a twinge in book readers and spoilerholics is when Bran and the Three-Eyed Ravenfinally took us inside the Tower of Joy flashback from the first novel in George R.R. Martin’sA Song of Ice and Fire book series. The sequence starring a Young Ned Stark, Meera’s dad, and some Targaryen men (whose names alone thrilled book readers) was fantastic. And it was heart-wrenching to watch Bran look longingly at his father. . .again. But just as Bran seemed like he might get some answers to a mystery some book readers have been hoping to solve to 20 years, the Three-Eyed Raven yanked Bran back to reality. So even though most book readers think they know what would have happened next in that tower, we’ll have to wait (along with Bran) in order to find out.

But while that abrupt ending to the Tower of Joy sequence may have sent a jolt of frustration through the audience, it lays some very interesting groundwork for Bran. First of all Bran, like the rest of us, is dying to know what happens next at the Tower of Joy. Actor Isaac Hempstead Wright told TV Guide that we might expect Bran to flaunt some of the rules and limitations the Three-Eyed Raven is trying to set in place. “It’s actually a very dangerous and powerful set of skills which he’s going to have to use at some point. But I think Bran’s still training up to a level where he’s responsible and mature enough to understand that and treat it with the gravity it requires.” What greater and more sympathetic motivation for breaking the rules than Bran wanting to solve the tantalizing mystery of the Tower of Joy? If, in a future episode, he were to sneak back into the Weirwood network after hours to try to get some answers, could we really blame him?

But it’s also worth paying close attention to young Ned’s reaction to Bran’s shouts. In the books (and to an extent in the show) the Three-Eyed Raven tells Bran he cannot change the past—he can only observe via visions. “You cannot speak to him, try as you might,” the book version of the character says instructing the young Stark. “I know. I have my own ghosts, Bran. A brother that I loved, a brother that I hated, a woman I desired. Through the trees, I see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them.” The show version of the character keeps a little more poetic, “The past is already written, the ink is dry.” But there are hints in the books that through his visions, dreams, and connection to the Weirwood trees, Bran has been able to make (light) contact with both Theon and Jon Snow. And Hempstead Wright seemed to confirm these hints telling Entertainment Weekly that Bran’s “starting to make use of the visions and starting to discover he can interact with the past — he’s like Doctor Who. It’s Doctor Bran!”

This opens up a wealth of possibilities in terms of how Bran may or may not be able to influence the events of the past. And if he can work up the power to get ahold of Ned, Jon, Theon, etc., does that mean he’s even more powerful than the Three-Eyed Raven? That kind of power, unchecked, could cause a lot of damage. (Think of what Anakin Skywalker became despite Obi-Wan’s best efforts.) Here’s hoping Bran learns the correlation between great power and great responsibility before it’s too late.